Awards

This prize is in memory of our 1979/80 BASCD President. The posters should cover any relevant area of community dentistry/public health involving an evidence-based approach to address population health, service development or oral health inequalities. This prize is awarded at our Spring/Summer Scientific Meeting; the award is £200 and a certificate.

Roger “Andy” Anderson, Professor of Dental Public Health at the University of Birmingham was a founding father of the British Association of Community Dentistry. He was the author of the first paper in Community Dental Health in 1984, which outlined the early development of the association. When BASCD was formed in 1973, Andy became the founding secretary and in 1979-80 he served as president. He was a member of many of the working groups set up by the association – notably the epidemiology group. Andy also had the distinction of having been involved in every one of the UK national decennial surveys of adult and children’s dental health since the initial study of 1968 until his untimely death in 1999.

The assessment criteria for this award relate to the topic, content and presentation:

Topic/focus

• Covers relevant Dental Public Health/Community Dentistry area
• Covers topic relevant to the conference theme
• Evidence based approach used
• Emphasis placed on public health agenda e.g. population health, inequalities, service development etc.

Content

• Clear aims and objectives
• Methodology described in sufficient detail and appropriate to address research question
• Results presented in appropriate fashion and depth
• Conclusion and implications highlighted

Presentation

• Well structured, clear and concise summary of project presented
• Appropriate use of language and supporting references
• Tables and figures used as necessary
• Interesting and appealing appearance

The Oral Health Promotion poster prize promotes collaboration between academics and oral health promoters and encourage the dissemination of good oral health promotion practise and evaluation among the BASCD membership.  This prize is awarded at our Spring/Summer Scientific Meeting; the award is £200 and a certificate.

It aims to:

• encourage good practice in the development, implementation and evaluation of oral health promotion activities
• facilitate collaborative working between oral health promoters, Dental Public Health and academics in oral health promotion research
• disseminate across the BASCD membership and more widely, examples of good practice in oral health promotion planning and evaluation

The assessment criteria for this award relate to:

Focus

• Focus of work directly relevant to dental public health, oral health inequalities and oral health improvement

Underlying principles

• Underlying principles of work are in accordance with the Ottawa Charter in terms of addressing underlying determinants of oral diseases and inequalities
• Implementation of complementary evidence based interventions
• Multidisciplinary working
• Community engagement
• Appropriate evaluation

Rigor

• Rigorous and appropriate research methodology adopted in terms of the theoretical basis for intervention and its evaluation

Presentation

• Well structured, clear and concise summary of project presented
• Appropriate use of language and supporting references
• Tables and figures used as necessary
• Interesting and appealing appearance

The poster award is sponsored by BASCD and the Borrow Foundation who are actively engaged in promoting oral health and disease prevention.

The poster prize is open to BASCD members from academic and non-academic institutions in their early careers e.g. undergraduates, clinical fellows, trainees and those undertaking Masters and PhD degrees. This includes dentists, DCPs and any other groups with an interest in public health.

The 1^st prize award winner will receive a certificate, £200 and be offered financial support to participate at the congress of the European Association of Dental Public Health (EADPH) being held in the following year, with such support being:

• provided to meet reasonable expenses for travel, accommodation, subsistence and congress registration, up to a maximum of £1750;
• conditional on the acceptance by EADPH of an abstract for a poster or oral presentation, and that presentation being made by the awardee.

A certificate and prize of £50 will be awarded to both 2^nd and 3^rd prize winners.

The assessment criteria for this award relate to the topic, content and presentation as follows:

Topic/focus

• Relevant to population oral health, health improvement, oral health care and policy
• Evidence based approach used
• Originality of the concept, potential impact and engagement with the principles of public health

Content

• Clear aims and objectives
• Methodology described in sufficient detail and appropriate to address research question
• Results presented in appropriate fashion and depth
• Conclusion and implications highlighted

Presentation

• Well structured, clear and concise summary of project presented
• Appropriate use of language and supporting references
• Tables and figures used as necessary
• Interesting and appealing appearance

This essay competition is dedicated to the memory of the late Keith Woods (d. 2005) who was a long-standing member of the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry. He took a special interest in the sequential National Surveys of Child and of Adult Dental Health and participated in a survey of dental health of North West prisoners. Seeing the growth and benefits of modern technology, he helped to develop computer software for the gathering and interpretation of oral health data.

The essay competition is designed to foster the interest of the next generation of dental professionals in public health dentistry. This competition is open to any undergraduate from dentistry, dental therapy, dental hygiene or  dental nursing student registered at a Dental School in the United Kingdom.

The essay competition title is distributed during the early summer period for submission in the autumn of each year. A prize of £200 and a certificate will be awarded to the winner of the competition. These will be presented at the BASCD Autumn Scientific Meeting.

2024 submission deadline 5pm Friday 13 September

Essay title:

“What do you consider will be the role of  dental team members in maintaining and  improving  oral health, and reducing oral health inequalities; for the population of the UK in 2050?”  

Competition rules

1. The competition is open to any undergraduate dental student (including those studying dentistry already in possession of another degree), undergraduate dental therapy, undergraduate dental hygiene, or undergraduate dental nursing student registered at a dental school in the United Kingdom.
2. A typed copy of your essay should be submitted as a Microsoft WORD document via e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by the annual closing date.
3. Essays should be no more than 2000 words in length (excluding references). This word limit includes abstracts, titles, and other text. The total number of tables or figures should not exceed four.
4. Specific details relating to the essay format for the 2024 are available at this link.